Seoul National University AGN Monitoring Project. V. Velocity-resolved Hβ Reverberation Mapping and Evidence of Kinematics Evolution

Author Info

• Shu Wang, Seoul National University
• Jong-Hak Woo, Seoul National University
• Aaron J. Barth, University of California, Irvine
• Vardha N. Bennert, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis ObispoFollow
• Elena Gallo, The University Of Michigan
• Edmund Hodges-Kluck, NASA/GSFC
• Minjin Kim, Kyungpook National University
• Suvendu Rakshit, Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences
• Tommaso Treu, University of California, Los Angeles
• Hojin Cho, Texas Tech University

Author ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2064-0518

Recommended Citation

Published in The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 983, April 3, 2025.

The definitive version is available at https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/adbca5.

Abstract

We present velocity-resolved reverberation lags of Hβ for 20 active galactic nuclei (AGNs) from the Seoul National University AGN Monitoring Project. We detect unambiguous velocity-resolved structures in 12 AGNs, among which eight objects exhibit symmetric structures, two objects show inflow-like characteristics, and two objects display outflow-like signatures. For two AGNs, we successfully measure the velocity-resolved lags in different years, revealing evidence of evolving broad-line region (BLR) kinematics. By combining our sample with the literature velocity-resolved lags, we find that the symmetric velocity-resolved lags are the most common (40%) type among this sample. The frequency of inflow kinematics is also notable (20%), while outflow kinematics are less common (11%). Our sample significantly expands the previous velocity-resolved reverberation mapping sample in the high-luminosity regime, enabling us to constrain BLR kinematics across a large dynamic range of luminosity.

Disciplines

Physics

Copyright

© 2025 The Authors

Number of Pages

13